Henry Cowell's Lime Works

Henry Cowell and his heirs managed the land until the 1950s. Cowell sought to establish a monopoly on the West Coast lime trade, expanded the lime works started by Davis and Jordan. In 1889, he bought Jordan's share of the company and incorporated as Henry Cowell and Co., and then in 1896 he bought Davis' share of the company and rebranded as the Henry Cowell Lime and Cement Company. Meanwhile, Cowell purchased several of his local competitors' quarries and constructed lime works across the county and state. By the late 1890s, Cowell had become the biggest lime producer in the region. After he died in 1903, his sons Ernest and Henry (Harry) managed the company.

"Messrs. Cowell & Co's lime works...have an aggregate capacity of 300,000 barrels of lime per year, and their output is highly appreciated by all practical builders. In fact, it has no equal on this market."—Master Hands in the Affairs of the Pacific Coast, 1892.

The landscape of this particular site transformed dramatically as it became one of the main quarries for Cowell's operations. A state mineralogy report indicates that by 1896, the quarry was 100 feet wide, 200 feet long, and 75 feet deep. In 1907, Cowell's son built a new lime works at the Rincon train station on the San Lorenzo River, along with a new road to connect the kilns to the quarry, or the Rincon Quarry as it was then called.

Photograph of Rincon Quarry (Upper Quarry) by George Silva, circa 1920s.

Photograph of the road to Rincon station by George Silva, circa 1920s.

Rincon lime works on the San Lorenzo River. Photographer unknown, undated. Courtesy of UCSC Special Collections.

"It was all hard, yes. Picks and shovels and drills. They didn't even have air hammers. Back then to dig a hole to put a blast in, they'd have a drill and probably hit it with a sledge, you know, and work the hole down.”—George Cardiff, manager of Cowell Ranch in the 1920s, describing early quarry operations.

Cowell and his sons were reluctant to adopt modern quarrying technologies into the 1920s. Laborers worked tirelessly to clear the rock—pounding holes into the rock with manual drills, loading them with powder, and then lighting the fuses by hand. Horses and oxen hauled cart after cart of rock to the kilns. The kilns burned twenty-four hours a day for up to four days, while "firemen" carefully monitored the temperature and air flow in order to ensure that the rock calcined evenly.

Photograph of quarry workers by George Silva, circa 1920s.

"Some people who have watched the steady diminution of the woodland on the Cowell Ranch have worried about the time when the field supply should be exhausted."—Santa Cruz Surf, 1915.

As the quarry became wider and deeper, the redwood forests that covered the hillsides began to disappear. Cowell, along with other lime companies in the area, used redwood to fuel the kilns, as well as to make barrels for shipping the quicklime. Between 1890 and 1920, the lime industry as a whole consumed between 10,000 and 20,000 cords of redwood per year—that's approximately 100-200 large trees. Eventually, the depletion of the forests forced Cowell's sons to switch to fuel oil.

Oxen hauling redwood. Photographer unknown, undated. Courtesy of UCSC Special Collections.

The Santa Cruz lime industry began to decline in the 1920s with the rise in demand for Portland cement, which was stronger and more durable due to its mineral content. The Henry Cowell Lime and Cement Co. closed the kilns at Bay Street in 1920, but continued to burn marble from the Upper Quarry in the kilns at the Rincon station until 1946.

Sources:

All photographs by George Silva have been made available by the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works. These images may not be downloaded or reproduced without permission from the Friends.

Cardiff, George and Elizabeth Calciano. Santa Cruz and the Cowell Ranch, 1890-1964. An interview [with George Cardiff]. Santa Cruz: UCSC Regional History Project, 1965.

Crawford, J.J. Thirteenth Report of the State Mineralogist. Sacramento: California State Mining Bureau, 1896.

Perry, Frank, et al. Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. Santa Cruz: The Museum of Art and History, 2007.